Phillies Prez Montgomery Backs Amaro

Stuck in the quagmire of another middling season, many are pointing fingers in one direction: Ruben Amaro’s. David Montgomery says, it’s not all on him.

Montgomery told the Philadelphia Inquirer that it falls on several people within the organization when it comes to player evaluation, not just the GM.

“The reality is that when things don’t go well, people look to find, well, whose fault is it?” Montgomery said. “I believe in situations like this that when times are good there’s enough credit to go around. It’s all of us. Ruben is not making independent decisions. He’s going with a pretty good group of eyes who are looking out there at players and making determinations. God knows we’re all trying to bat 1.000 on decision making. The reality is, I think we do better than the .300 standard in baseball.”

There are certainly many Phillies fans who will take issue with this stance from Montgomery. Amaro is the chief decision maker in the organization and no matter what will get the brunt of the blame, right or wrong. He is responsible for putting the team on the field, building the bullpen, and overseeing the minor league system. It’s easy to quickly jump to conclusions, but there is a two-year sample size to work with here and the results aren’t pretty.

It sounds as though Montgomery is fine with Amaro bringing the team through organizational transition. Whether or not you agree, the prez has spoken. I’ve said this numerous times before; David Montgomery has helped build the Phillies empire by keeping strong personal relationships and does not seem to have an interest in firing people unless he absolutely feels he must. He clearly is not there yet with Amaro. But how much time will Amaro have under Monty’s leadership?